With the Thanksgiving holiday last weekend, there has been very little stitching going on around here. Instead, I had a full week of Thanksgiving planning, shopping, cleaning, baking and cooking. So much production for one meal! But, I have realized that I think I enjoyed the meal a lot more than those who just sat down and ate it, lol. You appreciate the details more when you understand what was involved!
It's been a little challenging to get back to business as usual, but last night I did manage to finish the first motif for Month 2 of Best Friends Forever:
This is probably the least interesting motif in the Month 2 set, but at least it was fast. And I did manage to squeeze in one new element:
These little purple buds are just circles, but I stitched them in blanket stitch to give them a little more presence and tie them together with the flowers from last month.
The next motif will be the apple tree. I decided to try out the apples in padded satin stitch:
In the lower left corner you can see the remains of a failed attempt at this! But, I secured the thread so firmly that it is melded with the fabric. So, like it or not, I am now committed to satin stitch for the apples! But, I did find that the padding acts as a stabilizer and the fabric didn't pucker, so I think it will work out ok. Stay tuned!
And, today I have managed to link up again with all the Canadian blogs for WIP Wednesday at The Needle and Thread Network. There's lots to see this week!
Ever since I started English paper piecing, over a year now, I've been wanting a small, stable pincushion to park my threaded needle while I prepare the piece for stitching. I looked at a lot of pincushion patterns, but nothing seemed right. Yesterday I was looking at old cross stitch patterns when I found this pincushion pattern in the July 1997 issue (Number 75) of Needlecraft magazine from the U.K. They made theirs from 1" hexagons, but I scaled it down to 1/2" hexies. I also added some quilting to the top!
I am really happy with how it turned out, but it took some doing! I started with some scraps of Kaffe fabric from my scrap bin:
The one on the right is the Lichen print, which is now out of production. This was my very last bit. If anyone from Westminster reads this, please bring it back! It looks a little scary on the bolt, but it is magic when it's cut.
The green on the left, by the way, was not a big enough piece, so I used a larger scrap of green Millefiore instead.
I was disappointed with how the middle fabric (it's Kirman) turned out after it was cut and stitched. The hexagon shapes are a little lost. I put that one on the bottom! The one on the right, the Lichen, came out great:
The pattern says to attach the side pieces to the bottom flower, but I could see in the magazine photos that this makes the join visible around the top. So I attached the side pieces to the top flower. Here it is with the 1/2 squares inserted between the side hexagons:
At this point I took the paper pieces out of the centre flower and sandwiched it with batting and muslin. It is quilted with #8 perle cotton. Then I carefully (!) trimmed away the extra batting and muslin:
FYI, this is my first completed, hand quilted project! It is so small that I didn't need to do a proper quilting stitch on it, but I am counting it towards my New Year's resolution nevertheless!
The big challenge was joining the top and bottom together. Holding the pieces right sides together, I first sewed five of the side hexagons into the "V"s in the bottom, and then went back and joined in the four squares between them. This left two squares and one hexagon unsewn. I took out all the paper except the ones around the opening, and turned the piece right side out.
I closed up one square and the last hexagon, wrong sides together with tiny whip stitches, removing the papers as I went. That left just one square open. Then I used a paper funnel and filled the pincushion with lentils to give it stability, removed the last paper, and whip stitched the opening closed. I'm sorry there are no photos of the final assembly, at that point it was getting late and I just wanted to finish it! However, you can see the join in the first picture, which is not really what I planned, lol!
The magazine says the project can be completed in an evening, but it took me a solid eight hours. A lot of that time was spent scrounging around for materials, cutting the paper 1/2" squares, etc. The quilting was at most an extra hour. I'm sure a larger one would be easier to manage! Here's a final photo to show the scale:
What a refreshing change for me to have a quick finish!
In my machine quilting class about 15 years ago we were taught how to baste a quilt using safety pins, with the three layers of the quilt clamped to a table top. This past year, when I was finally ready to baste a large quilt, that method no longer worked for me. There were two reasons:
No appropriate table. Our dining room table has deep, slightly curved sides, and is made from a soft wood. It inevitably would have been damaged by clamps and/or pins, and it's not square anyway.
Bad back. Although I am fairly strong, a couple of back injuries over the years make standing bent over a table, or crawling around on the floor, out of the question.
Fortunately, I came across Sharon Schamber's quilt basting technique. I have used this method twice now, with slight variations, once with safety pins and once with hand basting. It holds the three layers beautifully, almost like a frame, AND, you can baste your quilt sitting down comfortably.
First, here are Sharon's two videos, and after I'll show photos of my quilt and discuss some details.
I love buying quilting supplies at Home Depot! For the boards in Sharon's method I bought pre-finished fibreboard trim in the 2.5" x 0.5" x 8 ft size. Click the photo to see the label larger:
At the store they cut the pieces for me down to 74" long, which is about right for most of my quilts so far. It is perfectly straight and square, better for this purpose than solid wood would be. It seems a little flexible, but it lies perfectly flat on the table.
I did buy the tatting thread Sharon mentions somewhere to use for basting:
I used up the whole ball, on my 54" x 66" quilt, and was left with 9 blocks still unbasted. So I was also able to try stranded embroidery floss on the last corner. The tatting thread had a tendency to snarl, until I figured out that it has a right direction and a wrong direction, like wool thread. Once you know that, it is easy to run the thread through your fingers and tell which way is right. For the stranded embroidery floss I used two strands in the needle. I tested one strand, but it did not seem as robust. Either thread works. The tatting thread is a little quicker, because you do not need to separate the threads. But embroidery floss is available everywhere, so you do not need to special order it. I bought the tatting thread from Nordic Needle.
With Sharon's tiny demo quilt she is able to lay out the back and the top together before she rolls them onto the boards. Edward's quilt has a flannel backing, so that proved to be completely impossible for me. Fortunately, I found that it is easier to roll each layer separately. Just make sure the back is right side down, and the top is right side up, before you roll them. And double check your measurements!
Here's my quilt halfway through the basting process:
In the centre are the two rows I am in the process of basting. The lower edge (with the plaid backing showing) is the part that is already basted and folded out of the way. At the top you can see the quilt top rolled onto its board, and the quilt batting behind/under that. At the top right corner you can see a lump under the batting which is the quilt back rolled onto its own board. The batting is not rolled, it stays flat.
When I am finished a section and ready to advance the quilt, I roll up the finished part, slide the whole thing towards me, and then flip the batting forward to reveal the backing:
Then I can unroll the backing, flip the batting back and smooth it all out, and finally unroll another two rows of the quilt top for basting. It seems a little logistically challenging at first, but once you get the idea it works beautifully, and the quilt is almost as taut as on a frame, just from the weight of the boards. And you can sit down!
The table top, by the way, is protected by a flannel-backed vinyl tablecloth. I slide a sheet of bristol board between the quilt and the vinyl where I am working to make sure the pins or needle don't pierce the vinyl.
It was not my plan to hand baste this quilt. I had braved the snowy roads in search of safety pins, because all mine were still in Edward's quilt. All I could find, though, were cheap, nickel-plated pins, and they were useless, catching the fabric and impossible to get through the layers. My brass quilter's pins, on the other hand, glide through the fabric like a dream:
TERRIBLE!!
Good.
Hand basting easily took twice as long as pin basting did. But I am hoping that I can leave it in while I machine quilt between the basting:
Hopefully that will save time later! In any case I suppose it was good practice for when I am ready to hand quilt. Feel free to put any questions or additional information on your basting techniques in the comments!
Here's the photo that got Eleanor Burns on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. It's from Failblog, and the caption reads "Nobody wants to see that.. ever." To me, what's really funny here is that the teenage boys (and Ellen, apparently) who run Failblog assumed that Burns didn't understand the double entendre.
I saw this when it first posted on Failblog, but it wasn't until I watched Eleanor on TQS that I heard about Ellen's involvement. I would love to say that I stopped reading Failblog because I'd matured, but the truth is that the ads became so intrusive that I couldn't hear the videos! Here's my all time favourite photo from Failblog:
Today's title includes the word "happily" because I have just figured out that I can sew strips without pins. It is extremely freeing! Not to mention way faster. Right now I am making placemats. These ones will be with the Christmas fabric I just bought at Fabricland:
These are nice, wide strips that will finish at 3.5" and are mostly from a lightweight home decor fabric. They went together so well that I was inspired to try it without pins. Then that went so well that I tried it with quilt fabric. First with 2" finished strips, and then when that worked, with 1" finished strips:
The real breakthrough came this morning when I tried to put the final chequerboard together, also without pins:
Every corner came out perfectly! Win!
The secret is to keep the strip with the seam allowances that are ironed upwards on top, with the seams pressed the other way on the bottom strip. This happens automatically when you are alternating directions like I did here. Then the presser foot pushes the top seam against the bottom one, and does the work for you. I have a few strip-pieced quilt projects similar to these waiting in the wings, so I am thrilled to have improved my process like this!
Although I have never read a book from Eleanor Burns, I really enjoyed her Legends show on The Quilt Show. She wrote her first book before she finished her first quilt! I identified with her quite a bit. :)
I know I have been quiet for a few days now, but that is because I have been massively productive! I always get an energy spurt in the spring, so I am trying to make the most of it. I'll share some of my work in the next few days, but in the mean time, here is an inspirational quilt by another TQS member, Terry Knott from Boring, Oregon:
Bursting With Joy
All the colour on this quilt is thread! And it is all free motion quilting, no machine specialty stitches. Terry was kind enough to also send me her Smilebox slideshow, with close-ups of all the stitching. You can find it here. If you go to the last slide there is a photo of the label. 428 hours of stitching and 29 bobbins full of thread! Here's some additional background on the quilt from Terry herself:
In October, I took a "ZenSuedeled" class from Sue Patten and drew the outline of the shapes. It took me a couple months to find a backing fabric that I loved and then I purchased six cones of Superior's Highlights 40 wt polyester thread and one cone of Superior's Rainbow 40 wt polyester thread. I started stitching the first of December. Before this quilt, I was comfortable stitching pebbles, small stippling, meandering and was making progress on feathers. I wanted to be more comfortable stitching background stitches without marking.
The thing I like the most about Terry's quilt is that even though it is machine quilted, it still has a "hand drawn" feel to it. I am finding that I have a strong dislike of computerized quilting. It always looks too rigid to me, and lacks "flow." Terry's stitches are lovely and even, but they don't have that impersonal feel that computerized stitches would have.
I was very inspired by Terry's quilt, because I really want to bring my free motion quilting up to this level. Terry suggested that just 15 minutes a day would improve my skills quickly. I find that idea to be very appealing! I immediately started to think about a 30 day challenge to quilt every day. I think September will be an easier month on Sedona Star, so I may think about doing it then.
I am not a great finisher of 30 day challenges - my 30 day drawing challenge fizzled before it really got started. Last spring I did a 30 day walking challenge, which lasted about 15 days before my outdoor allergies completely paralyzed me. But in both cases I still learned something valuable, so it may be worth starting even if I don't finish. Maybe I can re-vamp that drawing blog!
